Dead Time
Dead Time is the first episode of the third season in the series 40: The Last Splixson and the twenty-second episode of the overall series. Plot Ever since the creation of the New Splixsons, they have been experiencing night terrors and insomnia. Going to die. Going to kill. Who are you? I am Fred Blake. Who are you? I am the Fred Blake! Dreamwalker was tumbing through Linus' dreams, when he realized, that something was wrong. It was cold. Freezing. The darkness was so thick and oppressive, Dreamwalker was wondering whether the walls and roof were actually fashioned from it, from patches of night sky resentful that no stars had ever shone in their confines. He had been standing, rooted to the spot, for what seemed like an eternity. His senses were dulled with both pain and the tedium of his incarceration. In this place, the moments, the minutes, the hours seemed so stretched out that the words lost all meaning. He felt his face with numbed fingers, reminded himself of what he was, who he was. And Linus, and the other New Splixsons, taken from him and held somewhere out there in the blackness. He could picture them, growing older as his struggles continued, their wiry bodies wizening, their clear young skin wrinkling in this dark and empty place. We know you now, Fred. The voice was a mocking whisper. But the loudest whisper he had ever heard, up close in his ears. We are going to use you, to take from you what we need. We have been waiting so long, so patiently, for someone like you. The sinister voice a low moan of pleasure. And then we are going to kill you, Fred. We are going to kill you so slowly, so tenderly, you won't even realise that the moment of your death has come. We will be cloaked in your memory through the eons ahead. For the freezing chill that bred this darkness will make you a monument to us. We'll keep your memory fresh and dead and ours. No one else's. Ours. Forever. Dreamwalker said nothing. Blue eyes closed and his thin mouth clamped shut. But he knew the whispering spectre was telling the truth, and he could tell for certain that whatever was speaking to him was utterly mad. Another voice came to him, echoing eerily the void. Willie's voice. Willie: Fred, Fred, are you alright? At that moment, Dreamwalker was ejected from inside Linus' head and back into reality. Linus layed across his bed, still asleep. Dreamwalker reverted. Fred: It's like being entombed, shut in with only the darkness. It's so black in here. Willie, it's like nothing else has ever existed. Everyone I've ever known, everywhere I've ever been. It's like all that was just some kind of dream. It's only when I use clichés like that that I realise there has to have been something else. We're going to rip right through you, Fred. You're going to die. We're going back. We're going to kill you. Kill you. Kill you. Fred felt the whispering demons pulling at his memories, twisting them, devouring them, attempting to erase them. He stayed calm, eyes shut, retreating into himself. It was like trying to keep control of a huge house full of wild children tearing from room to room. What a pity, he reflected, that his mind contained so many places to hide. Suddenly Fred could hear cries of anguish over the mad jabbering of the whispering voices. They were coming from the New Splixsons. Fred: No, please, let them go. Stop hurting them. We're going to kill you. Kill you. Kill you. Even as Fred was distracted by the Splixsons' distress, he realised that the voices in his mind were taking the scraps of thought and memory he was sacrificing to the battle for control, and building a new image. Pale, white, a bloom of some kind. Flowers, tranquil against a deep indigo sky that was glittering with stars. He recognised the flowers. Recognised them from an age long distant, when as a young boy on Hathor he had watched funerals being conducted with pomp and magnificent ceremony. The flowers, almost invisible at first, so far were they from the eye, dropped fluttering onto the crowd of mourners far below. As a child it had been easy to believe that the flowers had fallen from heaven itself. They were the Hathor flowers of remembrance. Fred was immersed in a clear blue pillar of light. Past the blue veil, his surroundings blurred steadily. As the blue light faded, his surroundings became clear again. A huge palace radiating a dark light a fair distance away up ahead. Deck materializes right next to Fred. Fred: Oh. Oh, what? Where are we? Deck: Disorientated? Not surprising. We are in countless different times all at once, over a span of thousands of years. Simultaneous arrival in hundreds of different time zones. The League of Paradoxes has requested that I summon you. Fred: No need to get sniffy. So what does the League want? Deck: I'll take you to them. They came through the gate plaza and walked along the road, which was made with steel plates locked into position with rivets. Fred’s footsteps seemed heavy; maybe it was because he was afraid of what might happen. They walked amongst the steel towers for about ten minutes until an even larger tower loomed before them. Silver spears protruded out above the huge gates, while navy blue flags with red hourglasses swayed in the cold wind. It was the HQ of the League of Paradoxes. Deck began to walk towards the tower in long strides. Fred hurried to follow behind him. They went up the stairs; they footsteps echoing through the hall. After passing countless doors, they finally stopped in front of a cold steel door. Inside was a round room that took up an entire floor of the tower. The walls on all four sides were made of transparent glass windows. The light that filtered through them colored the room in a monotone gray. A huge semi-circular table stood in the center of the room; five men sat in the chairs behind it. Fred had never seen the four on the sides, but he recognized the one in the middle all too well. He was the Time Lord Timascus. He didn’t look all that imposing. His features were sharp like that of a scholar.The richly red robe draped around his tall, thin body made him seem more like a wizard that didn’t exist in this world. But the most prominent features were his eyes. Those mysterious brass eyes emitted a strong magnetism that overwhelmed people. This wasn’t even his first time meeting him; but to be truthful, he was still intimidated. Deck walked over to the table, the sound of his boots echoing, and gave a light salute. Timascus nodded slightly and clasped his hands together on top of the table. Timascus: It's been a while since our last encounter, Fred Blake. Fred: Yes. Yes, it has. Fred answered in a formal tone without even realizing it. He suddenly glared at Fred; his sharp metallic eyes showed an unwavering will behind them. Timascus: Fred Blake. Our Agency has encountered a particular time distortion ever since your creation of the New Splixsons. I suggest you pay closer attention to what's going on right beneath your nose. In many ways it behaves quite unlike any other form of causal disturbance ever before detected. But one possible explanation has presented itself in one of the more esoteric branches of academia. Timascus: The distortion fits a thesis which has been among the thinking circles for a long time. One which has never been accepted into our Codex of Disciplines. Anti-time. Unable to follow the rapid development of the story, Fred cut into the conversation. Fred: I'm not following you. Deck: We exist in the universe of positive time, finite time. The League of Paradoxes anchored the continuity of the universe. But just as matter has its counterpart in anti-matter, just as every action has an equal and opposite reaction, then, by all the immutable laws of the universe, positive time, the Web of Time, must have its shadow. Timascus: Anti-time, something with no past, no present, no future. A perpetuity of meaningless chaos. A now, with no beginning or end. Elegant. Brilliant. Thoroughly logical. And utter gibberish. Fred: May I ask how any of this concerns me? Timasxus: The Web of Time is stretched to breaking. History is leaking like a sieve. Timascus: If we plot these slippages back, however, a remarkable pattern emerges. We see the earliest major wave of distortion centred around the planet Hathor after your battle with Mick. Fred: You talk like it's a virus. Timascus: Precisely. Fred: And you think the New Splixsons are the carriers. Timascus: If the universe of anti-time was real, Fred, if it were an actual place, how do you suppose it might be accessed? Timascus' calm voice reached Fred's ears while he was sunk in his thoughts. Fred: I don't know. Some kind of gateway, a rip, a tear, a breach, a hole? Timascus: Go on. Fred: The Splixsons? Timascus used those brass-like eyes to stare at Deck and Fred who were standing side by side, and then said, Timascus: In itself, the their rebirth is not the problem. They are nothing. They would amount to nothing. Their descendants would be nobodies. They're nothing special, Fred. They wouldn't go on to cure a disease or start a war or discover a planet. By rights, their creation would be but the tiniest hiccup, easily made and easily mended. But their living was a rift. Their very being a breach. They are a rip in the fabric of space time, a breach with presence and physicality. Timascus: And it's through them we believe these distortions are flowing. A living conduit to a dimension which should never have met ours. Fred: Harm one hair on their heads in malice, Timascus, and I'll hound you to the end of reality. The man on the furthest right began to stand up at Fred's sharp retort, his expression changing. But Timascus stopped him with simple wave of the hand. Timascus: I give you my promise. I will not sanction any random justice or injustice against them. Fred: If this is supposed to make me recant, to make me see the folly of my choices in the past, to approve the unmaking of a single life for the sake of order, Timascus, I won't. The choice is yours. Go back in time, erase my deeds, the last few months of my life, blast me from the whole of history, even. Maybe I made a mistake, bringing back the Splixsons, but I stand by my mistakes. And by my promises, too. If you destroy them, rightly or wrongly, then I won't let you do it with a clean conscience. There has to be another way. And while my heart is still beating I swear to you I'll find it. T imascus: I know that, Fred. Even if I was prepared to sanction the intervention necessary to avoid the breach being opened in the first place, it'd be too late. This distortion, this disturbance, has grown too large to controlled. But what if there was another way. Fred: Then I'd take it. Timascus: It might be dangerous, and the chances of success very slight. Fred: Oh, you know me, Timascus. I like long odds. Timascus: And you'd go along with anything to put things right, so long as no harm came to the Splixsons? Fred: I think so, yes. Timascus: Very well. Fred, our only realistic approach is to follow the time distortion to its source. Deck: And destroy it. Lay waste to the scourge of anti-time at its root before it lays waste to us. Always and forever. Fred: You want to cross over into a dimension which may or may not even exist and wipe it out? Timascus: Oh, we have reason to believe the thinking is sound. There are records, Fred. Ancient records. But that's not important now. Will you join us? Will you help us? Fred: Yes. Yes, you know I will. But how? How in the name of Hathor are you going to transport yourselves into this universe of anti. Ah. Timascus: Obvious, isn't it, Fred. We'll be taking the same route as the time distortion. Through the space time breach. Through the Splixsons. Paradox teleports into the room with one of the New Splixsons, Linus, beside him. Timascus: We're not going to do him any harm. We need to prepare him for a small (pause) procedure. As long as he doesn't resist, it won't hurt at all. He'll restabilise once we're through, after we've discovered how to stem the flow of anti-time. Linus: What's going on? Fred: Don't worry. Everything's going to be alright. Timascus: As the breach is opened, You will transform into Chrononaut and download details of its precise space time coordinates to us. The Tower will then dematerialise through those precise coordinates and, well, we'll see where we are when we get there. Fred: If we get there. Timascus: Fred, he will be all right. Fred: He'd better be. The Novatrix faceplate pops up and shows the silhouette of Chrononaut. Fred pushes the faceplate back down and triggers the transformation. Chrononaut places his hand on Linus' forehead. Along with a sound effect resembling a bell, Linus’s body was enveloped in particles of light right away. Throwing his head back, a high-pitched shriek surged out from his slender throat. “...!?” Zsh, zsh, a sound similar to electronic noise reverberated within everyone’s ears. Immediately after that, Linus’s petrified body started trembling here and there, as though they were decaying away. Timascus: Prepare for full dematerialisation. Chrononaut reverted back to normal. Fred screamed and wrapped his hands around Linus' body frantically. Fred: Linus! Several seconds later, the mysterious phenomenon settled down, and the strength escaped from Linus' rigid body. Deck: What... happened just now... The hollow murmur from Deck faintly flowed through the empty space consumed in silence. Deck: It's just fantastic. You can see the universe through him. Timascus: And the breach opened before him, and all of the antiverse was revealed to him, and its terrible beauty ached in his heart. Paradox: So the adventure begins. Fred: Abort the mission! Linus can't take it! In all that's decent, Timascus, abort! Timascus: Too late, Fred. There's no alternative. The sequence has started, and it cannot be stopped. We're going in. The Tower was a long way out, tumbling through space and time. It vibrated and trembled as if afraid of where it was going. A klaxon sounded and instrumentation sparked and spluttered around them. Abruptly the room was plunged into darkness. Linus cried out involuntarily. The sound echoed eerily around him then died away into silence. Timascus: Listen. He whispered in the gloom. Timascus: It’s stopped. Fred transforms into Chrononaut once again. Chrononaut: Unable to settle. Unable to fix a space time location. You know what this means. We made it. Deck: You mean? Timascus: Nowhere, no when. At least, no place we can describe by our mathematics. No x, no y, no z, no n. Nowhere. Beyond those doors lies the universe of anti-time. Chrononaut: We have travelled into another universe, a dimension utterly alien to our own. Chrononaut's scanners are recording data calibrated according to continuous constant time. But they can't measure the sheer anarchy of this antiverse. Deck: You can't go outside alone, Fred. You've no idea what's there. Fred: Then I'll find the light switch. Deck: What if you can't breathe? Fred: I can go without air for some time, Deck. You know that. Besides, I've got the Novatrix. With that, he pulled the large brass lever that opened the doors, and left the dimly lit sanctuary of the Tower for the comfortless dark outside. Fred: There's air here. Fred called back, then started as he realised Deck was at his side already. Deck: Tread carefully. That was his only answer. He lit a match, but although it burned brightly it lit up nothing of their surroundings. Fred immediately transformed into AmpliFire. He generated a flame that shone brightly but still they could make out nothing but shadows. AmpliFire: I suppose there's no point going back to the Tower, is there? AmpliFire asked tentatively. Deck: We could wait there. AmpliFire: Wait? For what? Deck: I don't know. It's like, it feels like something's going to happen here. AmpliFire stared at him a little strangely. They moved off warily. It felt to Fred (AmpliFire) a little like walking on sponge, the way the dark surface of this place absorbed the noise of their footsteps. AmpliFire groped the air in front of him and touched something solid and fibrous. AmpliFire: What's this? A wall? Deck: It's some kind of archway. The wall was smooth, but he couldn't decide whether it was hard or soft, warm or cool to the touch. It just was. That seemed to sum up this place. Somewhere that just was. AmpliFire led the way as they moved cautiously through the narrow tunnel. It twisted round and round, becoming narrower and narrower, when suddenly he stopped dead and Deck bumped into him with a cry of alarm. AmpliFire: Shush. AmpliFire rotated the Novatrix symbol and transformed into Opticus. Opticus: There's something up ahead. Opticus turned behind him then, as if a voice had whispered his name. His irises became lime green and his pupils light teal. He caught a glimpse of something moving. A dull pale gold shadow someway off, just for a moment, then it was gone. Opticus: Who are you? The voice that answers is that of Fred's, only several tones deeper than normal. Unknown: Me? I'm everyone who never was. Another male voice is heard. Male: Everyone who's never been. Unknown: Everyone who never lived. Deck: More of you! Male: Everyone who never died. Unknown: And now, Fred, you're mine. Fred: Keep back. All of you.I don't know what you want. I don't know what to do. Unknown: Oh, Fred. You don't have to do anything. Just hold still and join us. Fred: Stay back, ghosts. Fred turned the rim of the Novatrix symbol, causing the core to pop out, which he promptly pressed. Cyclone then emerges as a spout of air and unleashes a massive gust of air. Deck: Fred, they're reforming. Cut them down and they just start reforming. Unknown: Do you really think you can do us harm, Aerosifa? Here, in our own home. Male: You made us, Fred. Unknown: Here, we can unmake you. Cyclone: What are you going to do? Unknown: Has yours been a good life, Fred? Will it nourish us for long? Male: Can we not gorge ourselves on them? All that temporal energy flowing through them. Deck: Fred, they absorb time, feed on it, like flowers absorb sunlight. Cyclone: Photosynthesis? Deck: Chronosynthesis. They must have been drawn to the chronon nuclei in me. Cyclone creates a powerful, outward-moving air current in all directions around him. Deck: What are you? Some kind of spectral entity? Unknown: A ghost? Deck, you don't believe in ghosts. Deck: You're alive, then? Unknown: Not in your terms. Cyclone: Do you know us? All of us? Unknown: Intimately. I've visited your reality once or twice. But briefly, so as not to cause catastrophe, sliding through space time, stealing whole seconds, chewing up moments and regurgitating them infected back into the continuum. Deck: And there are more of you? Unknown: Oh yes, hundreds. Thousands. Deck: Tell me, where do you come from? Is it here? Unknown: An excellent question, Deck. Deck: Somewhere else, then. What do you want from us? Unknown: Why, Deck, we only want a little of your time. Cyclone: Careful, Deck. There's no need to antagonise them. Unknown: Don't be so silly. The thing that you seek lies not far from here. Cyclone: What thing, anti-creature? Unknown: There is a castle in the hills not far away. There you will find the answers that you seek. And the object of your quest. At that moment, the overwhelming darkness turned into a dying dim light, with the anti-creatures nowhere to be seen. A colossal black city erected under the backdrop of the red sky appeared in sight. Palace Obsidia was the tallest structure of all in the boundless Land of Anti-Time. Even from their spot, the Castle had an overwhelming presence despite being almost twenty kilometers away. It was hard to imagine what it would be like to stand at its base. On the highest floor of the castle, Eon rose wordlessly from the throne, took a few steps forward, and turned to look into a mirror hung on the wall. What reflected was himself, wearing a look that was in slightly bad taste. A black metal crown encrusted with a crimson crystal rested on his head; on top of a black suede undershirt and pants, he wore a luxurious midnight fur gown. A rapier gleaming with a dreamy phosphorescence hung from his waist, and his boots and gloves were weaved with silver embroidery. On his back, he wore a long cape that was a dark tone of purple. He was the emperor who ruled the boundless Antiverse. Eon closed his eyes, took a slow, deep breath, and exhaled. Purple flecks of light were brought forth on the fingers of both of his hands with a faint, audible pulse—ten of them. Drifting breezily, the light orbs kept away nothing more than a little of the murky darkness. Eon: Take them. Cutting through the air, ten orbs released a swirl of energy as they shot through. Fred and Deck were making their way to Obsidia just when the ten orbs blocked their way and expanded into portals of gleaming purple. Hordes of Eon's Servants are summoned from the portals to attack. Deck: Looks like we're getting close. Fred: What makes you say that? Deck: Whatever there is must he something worth protecting. Fred selects the Novatrix dial, and presses it down. He transforms into Invisiball, and promptly compressed his entire body into a ball. The minions quickly surrounded him and stab him with their sabers. Invisiball endures the attacks in his compressed body then releases a concussive shockwave that repulses them away. Deck jumps in immediately and blasts them with a time ray. Then Invisiball rolls into a ball, spinning forward and crashing through them. One of the minions slashed at Deck diagonally from his side. Unable to endure the impact, Deck floated upwards. Without delay, the minion's saber lunged out, drawn towards Deck's unarmored chest. The sword seemed to have torn through his internal organs, from his right to his left. He was aware of an icy chill caressing his stomach at the time of that heavy blow, but what he felt as he flew through the air, and tumbled onto the ground was a pain rushing through his entire body as if he was being immolated. None of his fingers could move while the lower half of his body had no sensation at all. It wouldn’t be strange even if hisbody had actually been split into two with only a single layer of skin joining them. Invisiball rotated the Novatrix symbol and transformed into Lightning Edge. A pure white flash of lightning horizontally surged forth. Gagaan!! Its impact made a noise that assailed his ears beyond any other attack he had ever witnessed. The lightning landed directly on the minions as they squirmed like living beings. The lightning attack raged for several seconds before finally receding and the minions, came to a stop as their bodies swayed. Faint white smoke rose from the dozens of minions. They were charred black, and let out a shrill groan just before dissipating into the portals a mere half-second later. Lightning Edge reverted back to normal and rushed to Deck's side, who had collapsed on the ground. Fred: Deck! Deck: Don't worry about me! This is nothing. It happened when Deck sharply drew in a breath. He placed his hand over his wound; it glowed a faint purple and his wound completely sealed up. Deck: Temporal Healing. Rewinding time to erase injuries. We’ve already wasted a lot of time. Fred: Then let's get going. The next moment, Fred is consumed by green light and transformed into HayWire. Haywire releases a swarm of nanobots that manifest themselves into a pair of wings on his back. HayWire reached out his left hand and grasped Deck’s right hand. Then they bolted forward at breakneck speeds. Their incredible speed made the rock texture appear to melt as they passed. With his right hand in HayWire’s, his body floated out behind in a horizontal line. Looking ahead, he saw blinking purple eyes getting closer-- more of Eon's minions. Deck: Woahh!! Before he finished his sentence, HayWire ran right into the group of Minions without showing any signs of slowing down. Deck’s screams mixes together with the roar of the minions. But one after another, the rain of heavy weapons missed. HayWire saw a gap in the minions and rushed through with a furious dash. They turned around, voiced their anger, and began to give chase, but HayWire had already broken through into the next passage. After that, they met minions several more times, but HayWire simply dodged around and rushed past them all. At some point, a giant wave of them was following behind HayWire, their movement creating an earthshaking, avalanche-like tremor. HayWire started the sudden deceleration needed for landing. He spread his wings for full breaking and put his feet in front of him and started the landing process. HayWire reverted back to normal. Deck screamed, Fred watched as he barreled toward the outer wall of Castle, he sincerely hoped that he would survive his landing. After a few seconds, BANG!! As a terrible sound shook the air. Deck shrugged his shoulders, stood up, and turned to look at the Castle. Eon stood from the throne with his jet-black fur mantle aflutter before Fred and Deck blasted themselves into the throne room in a dramatic entrance. Fred: Prepare for your end, Anti-Creature! Eon: It has been a time beyond measuring. Here, alone in the cold, adrift and aloof from my people, my home. Once, my name was hailed and feared in equal measure by friends and enemies alike. Fred: Eon?! Eon: These are our terms. We will return you to your reality. In exchange, we require only that you undertake to establish a dialogue between the peoples of our realities. We hope to abide by the laws of your universe, in exchange for limited freedom to trawl your time stream for the energies which give us meaning. We anticipate, therefore, the construction of a permanent gateway between our realities. Fred: What? Using the Splixsons as your back door? That's not on. Eon: And so, as a show of good faith, we desire to retain one of your three leaders. The Time Lord Timascus, the Paradox, or Fred, who shall remain here in our universe until such an Accord can be reached. Fred: Yes, yes, yes. But what about the Splixsons? Eon: What about the Splixsons? What about them? The time they have now is stolen, pilfered on their behalf by you, Fred. Deck: I'm sorry, I am to take it you want to negotiate terms? Eon: We know you, time travellers. We know the effect that our limited excursions in to your reality has had upon your continuity. We know, if you could, you would eliminate us utterly. But your Time gives us being. Would you deny us our right to exist? Fred: I'm sorry, but I won't let you cross over into our time. We're leaving. Eon: I'm sorry to hear that. Eon grabbed Fred's hand with ease and his other hand flashed, snatching his throat and pushing him onto the wall. Fred clenched his teeth tightly and fought back with all his might. His wrist strength was greater than expected, but not enough to make Eon nervous. He twisted the Fred's arm all the way back, and lightly pressed his thumb into his windpipe, restricting his movements. Although the Fred's face contorted in excruciating pain, the determination flashing in his blue eyes did not weaken in the slightest. Deck fired a time ray that detonated simultaneously, bringing about an explosive gale that swallowed them. The pressure released caused no damage on its own, but Eon completely lost his footing, flung away like a rag. Groaning, Eon spread his arms wide and desperately tried to regain his stance. Somehow stopping his body from spinning as he was tossed about by the blast, he turned his two feet towards the imminent wall. A brutal shock shot up through him the instant he landed, piercing through the top of his head, and he withstood the numbness in his entire body as he momentarily stayed glued onto the wall before falling on the floor. Eon trapped Deck in a time bubble, making him unable to interfere with the course of the battle Fred quickly recovered and transformed into Busholdier. Busholdier loosens his right hand as it turns into a whip made from interwoven vines. But upon closer examination, sharp thorns sprouted along it in spirals as though it was the stem of a rose, giving off a dangerous gleam as it bore the light of the stars. Getting struck with such a thing wouldn't result in a mere tear in skin. In addition, the total length of the whip appeared to be four meters at the very least. Busholdier casually held aloft his right hand, then swung it down in Eon's direction without a pause. His whip streaked a green trace in the air and stretched its length to several times of what it was. Stretching his left hand out like lightning, Eon received the whip at a part near its tip, not with the back of his hand that was protected by a gauntlet, but with what peeked out from it: his palm covered by a thin leather glove. If he used the back of his hand, the whip would rotate with that as a fulcrum and its tip should seize his head, even if it lost a little power. Hence, Eon's choice was the right one—but the offensive power of Busholdier's whip wasn't something a single piece of thin leather could soak up. A restrained moan escaped from Eon the moment he caught the whip. Fred's ears could clearly perceive the sound of several of the bones in his left hand breaking all at once. He would not be able to use that left hand for a while. Busholdier uses his left hand and slightly turns the Novatrix symbol's rim, transforming into Prince Extremely Hairy. Prince Extremely Hairy: Aw man. I can't even remember what this one does! Eon stood straight, regaining his stance, and fires an intense time ray at him. Prince Extremely Hairy shielded himself with his two hands. His fur was burnt in spots, with smoke rising from those, and a part of it was now charred black from its previous glossy condition. The rapier at the right of Eon's waist gleamed blindingly purple. The flash that combined a drawing motion with a slash in the same stroke torn into Prince Extremely Hairy's chest. The rapier that swiftly etched out a trail, sliced through the his chest diagonally. A few deep crimson drops scattered from the gash sliced into the brown fur. The sword tip caught the Prince Extremely Hairy's flesh—but it was still shallow. He staked everything on avoiding a direct hit on his neck, but it still tore straight through his left shoulder. Feeling a frigid chill rather than pain, his right foot kicked off the floor with all of his strength and he feverishly hammered him with his fists: twice, thrice. The blinding, vicious pain that was previously absent surged through him this time as a spray of fresh blood whirled into the air. Eon stood firm on his left foot beyond the red mist, refusing to fall. Prince Extremely Hairy promptly slammed the Novatrix Symbol on his chest and transformed into Tarcastick. Eon: Doubtless you will be twisting like a slithery nematode, but you san't get off the hook this time. Tarcastick: You have a tortured way with metaphor. Though his height failed to reach even half of the Chronian’s, Tarcastick had his body covered by a tough-looking carapace in contrast to his enemy formed solely from light armor. Two of his bandages were visibly larger, serving as his arms. After twisting and hardening them, they were were long enough to bear a resemblance to swords as well. Raising that right bandage up high, Tarcastick threw it down at the Eon’s left leg. Eon inmediately retaliated stabbing him with his rapier. The tough carapace on Tarcastick warped as he supported that massive pressure. The competition ended in a mere three seconds. The one to break with a dull noise was Tarcastick’s carapace. Black tar gushed from the intersection, dyeing his black carapace. Getting up somehow with his two bandage-like appendages, he lowered himself to launch yet another reckless charge. But the Eon's rapier that came from straight above an instant quicker pierced deep into the his torso after tracing an elegant arc. “……Ah…" A noise, far too weak to be considered a scream, spilled out from Tarcastick's throat. The jet-black tick pawed at the floor with his remaining bandages, as though he wanted to stand even with his body stabbed all over. However, his body powerlessly sank in a puddle of black tar after Eon withdrew his sword with a damp noise. Tarcastick let out a shrill cry before the Novatrix timed out. With one foot in the grave, Fred slowly turned his near-destroyed body. Blood spilled from the various wounds while he started taking awkward steps like a toy with its battery cut. Fred: Come on, stupid watch. Just one more alien. Fred bangs on the Novatrix repeatedly, until he undergoes the transformation sequence. He transforms into Shadoweaver. Immediately after, strands of darkness flowed out from all over Shadoweaver. The pitch-black torrent that seemed to suck in all light rippled, twisted, and entangled within itself. Endless darkness continued to stream out from Shadoweaver’s hands. Eon’s rapier shattered into countless miniscule shards. He smiled and lowered his eyelids. While the darkness swallowed him whole in the next instant. Eon’s figure crumbled and scattered from the chest down as though he was blown apart. Beneath his barely raised eyelashes, his eyes, tinged violet and still faintly filled with light, looked upon Fred. Fred: I am desperately sorry for what has happened to you. I pity you, and I hope one day you will find peace. Deck: This reality is dissolving. Come on, Fred, It's time we were gone. Shadoweaver reverts back to normal. Fred: ...Yeah... In the Universe of Positive Time, Fred and Lord Timascus were discussing the events that had transpired in the Antiverse. Fred: The Splixsons are out of danger, right? Timascus: Yes. After you defeated Eon, the breach he had opened to our universe through the Splixsons was completely sealed up. Fred felt slightly relieved. Lord Timascus gently tapped his staff teleporting Fred back home.